http://phys.org/space-news/environment/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on the environment, environmental issues, earth science and space exploration. Scientists have designed a screening tool that provides a fast, easy and relatively inexpensive way to predict levels of a specific toxin in lakes that are prone to blue-green algal blooms. http://phys.org/news258050556.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-04T17:43:00-07:00 The University of Nevada, Reno's Sudeep Chandra, a leading Lake Tahoe scientist who has studied invasive species and limnology at the lake for 20 years, said issuing permits for commercial harvesting of crayfish at Lake Tahoe will help improve clarity at the pristine lake, as well as take away a food source for other invasive species that threaten lake clarity and ecosystems. http://phys.org/news258034474.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-04T13:18:14-07:00 Stockholm registered its coldest June weekend in 84 years, with temperatures hitting a maximum of just six degrees Celsius (43 Fahrenheit), meteorologists said Sunday. http://phys.org/news258002745.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-04T04:40:02-07:00 Latin America's largest landfill was closed Sunday after 34 years, just days before Rio de Janeiro hosts a major UN conference on sustainable development. http://phys.org/news258003087.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-04T04:31:32-07:00 Peru needs a permanent monitoring system to gauge Andean mountain glacier shrinkage caused by global warming and its effect on people who depend on the ice for water, UN experts warned. http://phys.org/news258002661.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-04T04:24:35-07:00 Warmer water and reduced river flows in the United States and Europe in recent years have led to reduced production, or temporary shutdown, of several thermoelectric power plants. For instance, the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama had to shut down more than once last summer because the Tennessee River's water was too warm to use it for cooling. http://phys.org/news257922808.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-03T13:00:01-07:00 (AP) — Years of ferocious storms have threatened to gnaw away the western tip of a popular beachfront park a two hours drive north of Los Angeles. Instead of building a 500-foot (150 meter)-long wooden defense next to the pier to tame the tide, the latest thinking is to flee. http://phys.org/news257922180.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-03T06:03:09-07:00 UNESCO on Saturday urged decisive action from Australia to protect the Great Barrier Reef from a gas and mining boom, warning it risked being put on its list of world heritage sites deemed "in danger". http://phys.org/news257829670.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-02T04:21:15-07:00 A new round of climate talks will be held in Bangkok from August 30 to September 5 to prepare for minister-level negotiations at year end, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said on Friday. http://phys.org/news257779951.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T14:32:40-07:00 The effects of ocean acidification on Arctic seas will be studied by a team of 30 researchers, including Dr Toby Tyrrell from the University of Southampton, who set sail from the UK today (1 June), venturing as far north as polar ice allows. http://phys.org/news257779595.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T14:26:59-07:00 The poorest societies may be more able to adapt to the threat climate change poses to food supplies than their slightly richer peers, a new study suggests. http://phys.org/news257759691.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T09:20:01-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are known for designing high-efficiency cookstoves for Darfur and Ethiopia. Now they are applying their expertise to the windswept steppes of Mongolia, whose capital city, Ulaan Baatar, is among the most polluted cities in the world. http://phys.org/news257760125.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T09:02:16-07:00 (Phys.org) -- The Great Smog of London is often upheld as a time when pollution reached appalling levels: over a four-day period in December 1952, the capital came to a standstill, cars were abandoned, airports closed and over 4,000 people died due to respiratory or cardiovascular problems. But what might come as some surprise is that roughly the same number of people died as a result of pollution in London in 2008. http://phys.org/news257759347.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T08:49:14-07:00 (Phys.org) -- The results of an international study, using data from globally available field research, indicate that current pesticide approval procedures do not adequately protect the environment. http://phys.org/news257759017.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T08:43:49-07:00 Between 85 and 100 percent of biodiversity maintained. 'Don't dismiss it as lost acreage.' http://phys.org/news257758029.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T08:27:18-07:00 The reintroduction of farm ponds could significantly reduce agricultural pollution in our streams and rivers, according to new research. http://phys.org/news257757684.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-06-01T08:26:04-07:00 Traveling the western U.S. state of Nevada in the 1860s, a young American writer named Mark Twain heard a "world of talk" about the beauty of Lake Tahoe and so set out one August day to see the lake perched high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Determined to make the 11-mile journey on foot, Twain and his companions became briefly discouraged after toiling up one mountain and then another to no avail. But they trudged on until "at last the Lake burst upon us," Twain wrote in his 1872 book, Roughing It. http://phys.org/news257702877.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T17:08:20-07:00 The search for alternatives to fossil fuels has prompted growing interest in the use of wood, harvested directly from forests, as a carbon-neutral energy source. http://phys.org/news257694410.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T14:48:21-07:00 Paving a highway across South America is providing lessons on the impact of road construction elsewhere. http://phys.org/news257681406.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T11:20:01-07:00 Long winters with low temperatures of -40°C and extended hot and dry periods with sand storms are significant challenges for people and infrastructure in Mongolia. Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) the MoMo - project (Integrated Water Resource Management in Central Asia: Model region Mongolia (MoMo) is focused on identifying appropriate water management solutions to the vast and sparsely populated and resource rich nation. http://phys.org/news257680271.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T10:51:41-07:00 (AP) — The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant. http://phys.org/news257671448.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T08:30:02-07:00 Research conducted by Tyas Basuki at University of Twente’s Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) shows that felled tropical rainforest in Indonesia (of the Dipterocarp species) is growing back much slower than expected. Based on the available knowledge at the time, the Indonesian government stipulated that an area may be logged only once every 35 years. Basuki's research, however, shows that in order to guarantee genuine sustainable forest management, countries must adhere to a minimum logging cycle of 120 years. Basuki defended her PhD thesis on 24 May. http://phys.org/news257668268.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-31T07:31:26-07:00 Researchers at the University of York headed a major international review aimed at enhancing efforts to better understand the impacts of chemicals used in pharmaceuticals or in personal care products, such as cosmetics, soaps, perfumes, deodorants and toothpastes (PPCPs), on the natural environment. http://phys.org/news257609690.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T19:00:02-07:00 A recent report analyzing a range of published studies on the impact of bark beetles on trees in the U.S. and Canada provides a more complete picture of the effect of this destructive insect on wildfires. http://phys.org/news257607750.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T14:42:46-07:00 New research by the University of Southampton has examined the role of voluntary organisations in promoting pro-environmental behaviour change. It points to evidence of success around small-scale, local initiatives, but questions whether these can be scaled up to reach the wider public. http://phys.org/news257596504.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T11:35:13-07:00 Greenpeace on Wednesday accused global fastfood chain KFC of using paper packaging made using wood from Indonesian rainforests which it said was endangering the habitat of the Sumatran tiger. http://phys.org/news257590811.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T10:00:18-07:00 New research released today by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) shows that hundreds of millions of forest peoples in tropical nations have, in the last 20 years, quietly gained unprecedented legal rights to the land and resources owned under customary law. The research also finds, however, that more than one-third of the rules governing land rights in most of the forests of Africa, Asia and Latin America significantly limit a community's ability to exercise those rights. http://phys.org/news257589067.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T09:31:21-07:00 Australian officials are seeing a rising number of Asian fish imports containing banned antibiotics, a report said Wednesday. http://phys.org/news257570641.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-30T04:24:18-07:00 The smoke rising from a cookstove fills the air with the tantalizing aroma of dinner – and a cloud of pollutants and particles that threaten both health and the environment. How families in developing countries use their cookstoves has a big effect on emissions from those stoves, and laboratory emission tests don't accurately reflect real-world operations, according to a study by University of Illinois researchers. http://phys.org/news257529657.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-29T17:01:08-07:00 Researchers at four of the country's leading universities are embarking on a low carbon engineering project that could transform the way cities are built, as well as the way we live in them, by taking a novel 'back-casting' approach to their study. http://phys.org/news257516049.html Space & Earth - Environment 2012-05-29T13:30:01-07:00